Nick Clegg In Oxford Review

Witterings from Witney and I attended Nick Clegg's debate today in Oxford having unexpectedly been allocated tickets in a ballot. We did wonder whether our allocation had occurred due to a lack of popularity for the event. Having attended this lunchtime our suspicions were confirmed, though there was a reasonable attendance, the hall clearly wasn't full or packed.

Indeed as we entered we were asked to fill in empty seats near the front - no doubt to make it look good for Clegg on television. Needless to say WfW and I ignored such requests and sat where we liked.

The 'comforting' title of "Meet Nick in Oxford" Lib Dem website had noted before the event:

If you are successful [in the ballot for tickets] you will need to arrive at 12.30pm as seats will be limited. The hour-long event is free and you will have to bring photo ID to gain access to the event.

What it didn't state was what time it would start, and nor could anyone at the event give any confirmation. But as it turned out it was 13:00 and even then Clegg was late (an old trick). Then the "hour-long event" suddenly was announced as a 45 minute one. In addition the requested photo ID wasn't asked for on entry (though we suspect that was requested in anticipation of disruption, which indeed happened at the end which we will return to later in the post).

So all in all not a good start. But then we were under no illusions that this would be a proper "robust Q&A" session. We also expected Clegg to insult those who wish to leave the failed anti-democractic project that is the EU, which he duly did on many occasions. However we anticipated that at least there would an opportunity to take Clegg to task during the Q&A session if selected, via a show of hands, to ask a question.

What became quickly apparent was that this was most certainly not going to be a "Meet Nick in Oxford". Despite the Oxford Mail hosting the event and introducing Clegg, the decision to select which members of the audience would ask questions was left to Clegg himself. A situation very different to hustings meeting attended where a Chairman adopts that role to ensure fairness in question selection. Why did the Oxford Mail not adopt this role as it was the host?

It subsequently became rather revealing who was being selected. Despite WfW putting his hand up every time - and myself on a couple of occasions - neither of us were nominated. WfW in particular was quite obviously being ignored. Clegg noticeably avoiding eye contact at every opportunity perhaps sensing that WfW by clearly being a gentleman of much more experience might give Clegg a somewhat difficult time (and he was right).

Instead virtually every audience member chosen to ask was under 30 and mainly they were in their early 20s. They are likely to ask the easiest questions - as an example one question was whether an England World Cup win was more likely than a Liberal Democrat electoral success. This from a hall that had a fair number of Oxford University students in the audience. Is this really the level of our political debate?

Only three men in total were selected, the rest were women. And only one person was selected who was over the age of 30; a lady who turned out to be a local Lib Dem Councillor - to feigned surprise by Clegg. What a coincidence!

After every question Clegg then proceed to waffle on extensively, adopting the technique of filibustering to drag out the 45 minutes - it was like a glorified extended version of "Just A Minute".

Despite the billing that this debate was about Clegg's views on UK in the EU and the opening remarks by himself concentrating on the EU and the forthcoming Euro elections there were no specific questions on the subject. The closest we had was the last question about gay rights which was linked rather tenuously with our membership of the EU.

Largely we felt the whole experience was a waste of time, but as a consolation it did give an acute lesson in the art of stage management and audience manipulation. We were reminded of stage artists such as Sally Morgan who claim they have psychic powers. They don't of course, instead it's a combination of cold reading, educated guesses based on statistics and the use of information provided before the show. With this in mind it's worth noting that the application form to enter the ballot was headed with:

Your question to Nick

Thus giving Clegg advanced warning of questions to come. Doris Stokes would be proud.

On a final point, Clegg made great play about the Liberals historically being a party of democracy, liberty and freedom, but after the session ended a gentleman was rather roughly and physically bundled out of the building after he attempted to present Clegg with what was clearly Lib Dem literature (we're guessing as a protest against broken Lib Dem promises). This we suspect is why the photo ID request was made. And there goes the party of liberty...

In conclusion it was a stark reminder of what we already knew - those in favour of EU membership simply cannot be honest about it and lack the backbone to justify their position.

This piece has been cross-posted with WfW.

The Tree, The Council and The Street Lamp

Regular readers may remember a blog post from late 2011 regarding a street lamp outside my house and a tree that has grown to such an extent it was blocking light and maintenance access. The council at the time, citing the Highways Act 1980, gave me 14 days to complete the work or they would do it themselves and seek to recover the costs.

One small problem the tree and the lamp post is on land which is not mine, so I’m not liable. This was pointed out to them at the time which had a confirmation reply that my response was noted and recorded.

2 ½ years later the tree remains untouched. Funnily enough when they thought it grew on my land it was urgent yet when it turns out to be their problem it was less urgent.

And so the lack of pruning of the tree has resulted in another letter to me from my local council, virtually identical in wording to the original, that as a result of a maintenance inspection (nice to know they happen on such a regular occasion) I need to carry out the work in 14 days “or else”. My original email been lost then?

Just to "help me on my way" I have been given a sheet of illustrations that demonstrate the "council requirements for trimming trees around S/L columns - scanned below (click to enlarge):

Apparently they require that:

Clearance to be sufficient to be effective for at least 12 months but preferably as a long term solution

I'm not sure how they would know it was effective for at least 12 months given inspections seemingly happen only every 2 ½ years. Clearly then what apparently applies to me does not apply to the Council (the tree is on Highway Agency property). They admit themselves the current situation is contrary to the Highways Act so that then applies to them as well.

One is now having mischievous thoughts...

"Democracy Is A Minority Issue"

Both Autonomous Mind and Richard North have superb pieces on the arrogance of local councils, specifically Brighton and Hove, and their refusual to hold a referendum on any proposed council tax increase:

The referendum rule is mad. It’s not really workable and would cost about £300,000 to run.

As AM notes:

There you have it.  A sitting councillor who no doubt prattles on about ‘democracy’ and the ‘wishes of the people’ when trying to get elected, declaring that having to seek our democratic consent for a raid on our personal wealth, is unworkable.  In other words, the council should be allowed to demand what it likes and to hell with what residents think.

Quite. Though I guess there is one positive outcome - it is clear validation of at least one of the Harrogate Demands of "no taxes or spending without consent". Local councils would not be so vigorously against the idea of referendums if they did not work.

Arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Recently an acquaintance of mine has had a similar experience courtesy of Oxfordshire County Council via email albeit on a rather more modest issue than one of spending our own money.

As I noted in May the recent local elections saw the Conservatives lose control of Oxfordshire County Council which lead to one of the incumbent Tory councillors losing his temper at the count. Four Independents were elected but after the election three of the four opted to form a “Conservative – Independent Alliance” (Lynda Atkins for Wallingford, Mark Grey for Benson and Cholsey and former Labour Councillor Les Sibley for Bicester West), thus ensuing that the Conservatives would retain effective control of the council after a deal had been struck:

The alliance means the independents will support the election of Tory leader Ian Hudspeth on Tuesday and add their weight to the party’s budgets for the next four years, but they will not sit in the cabinet. 

Occurring as it did after the election had taken place meant the deal had no reference to the electorate's wishes and certainly had no mandate on which the independents were elected (interestingly the only independent who has remained so and upheld his promises is the one that represents me - but then I know where he lives).

The leader of this independent grouping (if that is not an oxymoron) is Lynda Atkins (from Wallingford) and she has publicly stated, in what is an attempt at some sort of a defence, the following (my emphasis):

It’s not an administration, it’s not a coalition, we’re calling it an alliance. We’re not joining the Tories. This is something which fits the current circumstances, something that will work right here and right now.

We believe that what we have done is very much in the best interests of our constituents and all the other residents of Oxfordshire. I think we always have to go back to our voters and explain our decisions, and this will be no exception.

A crucial element in explaining to voters decisions that have been made is to have the voting records of local councillors made as a matter of public record. I'm not sure how well known this is but there is no statutory requirement for councillors to record their votes. Conversely it is a matter of public record just how our MPs vote in Parliament (and indeed the EU Parliament as well) but there is apparently no such equivalent requirement for county councillors to demonstrate transparency to their electorates.

There is the option at county council for someone to publicly wish for their vote to be recorded in the minutes but crucially it is not compulsory - for most votes only the overall result is recorded. However, any councillor can ask for the way they voted to be added to the minutes. Similarly, if there's sufficient support among the councillors at a meeting, the votes of each member can be recorded.

As Oxfordshire County Council do not keep records of councillor voting records, not unreasonably due to the "deal" done, an enquiry was made via email to Lynda Atkins of which the following is an extract:

That in the interests of open, honest and transparent governance, you agreeing to the publication of your voting records is the only manner in which your electorates can have faith in your promises to hold the conservative minority administration to account.

After a delay in response and further promoting for a reply, Lynda Atkins eventually responded in a revealing manner (I publish her replies without permission in respect of her views of explaining decisions to the voters):

I prioritise emails and deal with non-urgent ones such as this when time allows, and am happy to take 3 or 4 days if that means I can focus on more urgent matters earlier.

The way in which County Council votes are taken is entirely different from that in Parliament, and recording who votes how is very cumbersome and time-consuming.  Yours is the only request I have ever come across (in 5 years on the County Council) for votes to be routinely recorded, so there does not seem to be a broad wish among residents for that to happen.  Given the problems of introducing a routine system of recording votes, I would not support it.

Intriguingly Atkins lets us know what she thinks are urgent issues as per the first paragraph, then makes assumptions on the "broad wishes" of residents (who actually may be unaware that votes are not recorded and would welcome them if informed that was the case), then with a flourish she decides that such a process would be "very cumbersome and time-consuming". Atkins presents no specific evidence of that of course and nor can she since she has no experience given Oxfordshire County Council do not implement such a system.

It's unacceptable that we have no public record of how councillors vote - using the excuse of cost to hide the workings of the council is simply arrogant, particularly in a public organisation with a budget of nearly £600 million. Ensuring transparency and accountability via voting records can be done relatively simply - for example recording such things in the minutes or by a method that the use of a piece of paper, pen and a pair of scissors cannot solve. The Ventnor Blog - Isle of Wight's local site - showed a possible low cost way in 2011:

We thought it would be helpful for you to know how your local councillor voted, so have built a system to let you know. We’ll endeavour to update it live as the votes are being taken.

Atkin's concerns therefore look suspiciously more like concealing her decision-making than a concern for public savings. Further reiterated by a subsequent email in response to one that pressed her on the above points:

All I can do is to repeat what I said previously, that you are the only person who has mentioned this as an issue.  I was not 'surprised' at your request, but I do believe that it is very, very much a minority view. 

Thus in the words of an "elected" councillor a moderate request for democracy becomes "very, very much a minority view".

Here we have a small number of councillors (three), holding the balance of power in Oxfordshire County Council who then refuse to let their electorates see just how they intend to support this failing council. Lynda Atkins' statement about “explaining decisions” is entirely worthless if she, and the rest, refuse to let the public know how they voted.

A Waste Of A Vote?

The following letter appeared in my local paper in the last week:

Sir, After Liberal Democrat Evan Harris’s third term in office as MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, a few of us felt that it was time to get an MP who would challenge their party occasionally and vote by their conscience and their constituents’ best interests and not toe the party line.

I am afraid to point out to those who made the same mistake as I did that his Conservative successor Nicola Blackwood has followed the line of so many before and voted to keep her party happy and not her constituents.

On February 22, the following motion was put before Parliament: “That this House calls on the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill in order to ensure that it informs public and parliamentary debate”.

The motion was put before MPs because the Information Commissioner thought that it was in the public interest for people to know what the Conservatives were trying to do with the Health and Social Care Bill. Nicola Blackwood voted against it.
So she is saying that the public should not know the facts about this Bill, which will affect every person in her constituency. How condescending. This seems too stupid and hard to believe, doesn’t it?

Since June 2010, she has never voted against her party once.If we wanted her to vote the party line, we would have asked for that. In fact, I have sent her letters saying that the only reason I voted for her was to bring a bit of youth into Parliament, who would vote for her constituents and follow logic. Some things never change and this waste of a vote will be out at the next election.

While I share some of his sentiments, there's depressing sense of naivety about them, which adds to the problem of our broken (and lack of) democracy.

It was pretty obvious from the outset that Ms Blackwood would toe the party line; she was on the Tory A-list, the constituency is next door to her boss's and at under 30 years old she has a greasy pole to climb first. Not even the fact that the constituency is a marginal is enough to concentrate her mind to put her constituencies wishes first, as demonstrated in the letter above.

Yet despite the letter writer's exasperation at a 'wasted vote' he takes comfort in the knowledge that; "...this waste of a vote will be out at the next election" - the implication being that he will partake in the election to vote against Ms Blackwood. But what's the point, who would she be replaced by? Dr Evan Harris probably and then the whole silly charade continues all over again.

The problem is that it's not Ms Blackwood that needs replacing but, as Richard North illustrates, the whole damn rotten system.

Illuminating

In August I received, out of the blue, the following letter dated 4th (scanned in, click to enlarge) from Oxfordshire County Council:

And the back of the letter...

In summary the key quotes are:

It has come to our attention...that the above light [side of my house] is being obstructed by a shrub, which may be growing on your property and overhanging the highway boundary ...under the Highways Act 1980, and for the safety of the public, we have to maintain full operation of street lights and this includes unobstructed illumination of the highway.

...it is the owner's responsibility to maintain vegetation to meet this requirement.

Guess what's coming next?

Please notify me within the next 14 days....whether you will be able to carry out this pruning work...

Or:

If you are unable to, or we do not receive a reply within the next 14 days, we will arrange for the work to be carried out by our Contractor and may seek to recover the cost from you.

Seek to recover costs? Unfortunately - for Oxfordshire Council - the tree / shrub does not reside on my land, according to my deeds, so I sent the following email clarifying that in response (click to enlarge):

Since my email; arguing that the tree / shrub does not grow on my property I've had no further response from the council. And this is the tree / shrub, in question, over 2 months later (taken today) - still uncut:


Funny how - when they thought it grew on my land - it was urgent and contrary to the Highways Act 1980 and I was given 14 days to sort it out or else I'd incur charges. But when it turns out to be their problem...um that's a bit different.

Hmm I sense a FOI request in the making.